Movie Night Wednesday, April 29: Black Gold

Slow Food RI and Farm Fresh RI are pleased to announce the showing of Black Gold, a documentary about the coffee industry, at Local 121, 121 Washington Street, Providence, Wednesday, April 29.

The coffee industry is an 80 billion dollar industry, but while consumers pay a high price for their lattes and cappuccinos, coffee farmers are paid so little that some may have to give up their coffee fields. Black Gold follows the General Manager of the Oromia Coffee Farmers Co-operative Union, Tadesse Meskela, as he travels from Ethiopia to London and Seattle fighting to save the coffee farmers he works with from bankruptcy.

From the directors:

We decided to make BLACK GOLD after it was announced at the end of 2002 that Ethiopia was facing another famine. Twenty years earlier in 1984, people across the world had been motivated to respond to this crisis by giving aid.

The difference this time was that Ethiopian coffee farmers, known for producing some of the best quality coffee in the world, were also caught up in this new food crisis. Given that the global coffee industry was booming, making record profits for the largest multi-nationals, we felt that this was a story that had to be told – a story that could expose the exploitation in the coffee industry as well as highlight that the developing world want a fairer trading system rather than aid.

We are thrilled to have Rik Kleinfeldt of New Harvest Coffee Roasters speaking after the presentation of the movie. Rik has recently returned from Honduras and Colombia on a coffee sourcing trip and will share his experiences – as well as his delicious fair trade coffee – with us.